••*A/VtA*/«JL prv ^ *.tt>f tCttJL '^^J>r\^J^. <v'>/<^J. THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY FOUNDED BY JAMES I.OEB, LL.D. EDITED BY t T. E. PAGE, C.H., UTT.D. E. CAPPS, PH.D., I.L.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, u-rr.n. L. A. POST, M.A. E. H. WARMINGTON, m. GREEK LITERARY PAPYRI I GREEK LITERARY PAPYRI IN TWO VOLUMES I TEXTS, TRANSLATIONS AND NOTES BY D. L. PAGE, M.A. STCDKNT ASD TTTOR OF CHBIST CHURCH, OZFOBB UmVKRSITT LECTCRER IN GRKEK ASD L4TIN LITERATDBE LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHCSEri"S HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS HCMXLII PA V.I TO MY WIFE KATHARINE First printed 1941 Revised and reprinted 1942 Printed in Great Britain — PREFACE This book professes to contain all the Greek poetry which has been recovered from papyri ; except (1) texts already published in other volumes of the Loeb Classical Library, (2) texts destined for publication in other volumes (e.g. the fragments of CalUmachus), (3) fragments which are too small and broken to be either coherently translatable or—in our opinion worth reprinting here for any other cause." A few texts from ostraca and parchment have been included for special reasons. The contents therefore exclude the fragments of Hesiod, Alcman, Alcaeus, Bac- chyUdes, Timotheus, Herodes and others ; Sappho, Pindar and Corinna are sparsely represented ; there remain (1) all the papyrus-fragments of Tragedy, *• (2) all of Comedy, except the greatest part of " Texts of importance to the scholar but not yielding a sufficiently connected sense to be worth reprinting here include among others the following : Berliner Klassikertexte, V. 1, p. 67; P. Oxy. nos. 419, 676, 1823; Cat. Lit. Pap. B.M. nos. 51, 53, 57 ; P. Ryl. no. 1 ; P. Hibeh, nos. 10, 11 ; Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, iii. p. 1 ; Raccolta Lombroso, p. 29; P. Vindob. 29779. P.S.I, iii. no. 157 is omitted because I can make no sense of it ; and I have ventured to think that no useful purpose would be served by republishing the fragments of Dioscorus of Aphroditopolis. * Except the fragment commonly ascribed to Aeschylus, Carians (see H. Weir Smyth, Lx)eb Aeschylus^ vol. ii.). PREFACE Menander, (3) all of Mime (despite its want of poetry), (4) a considerable number of fragments in lyric, iambic, elegiac and hexameter verse : altogether, about four thousand two hundred lines of Greek poetry. The edition of these texts was originally undertaken by Mr. C. H. Roberts, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. Engaged in heavier labours he transferred the task to me ; but not before he had nearly completed a catalogue of all fragments to be taken from publications up to the summer of 1933"; this catalogue was seen and so far approved by Hunt himself. Mr. Roberts handed to me at the same time a book of notes, the result of long and ingenious labour on the Tragic and Comic fragments : although I started the work again from the beginning, I derived great profit from his researches, and here express my gratitude. The reader will find that the text and translation of each piece are preceded by a short bibliography and an introductory note. I must briefly explain both these and the texts themselves. At the head of each text stands a full reference to the editio princeps, followed by abbreviated references to books, articles, reviews and notes which deal with the whole or some part or aspect of the text. These little bibliographies do not always aim at complete- ness; which, for such pieces as Hypsipyle and Ichneutae among others, was beyond both my power and the scope of my book. And I have of course excluded " The editiones principes referred to in this catalogue are scattered over four dozen different books and periodicals, a few of which are almost—one or two quite^unobtainable in England. I have at last had access to all except the ed. pr. of no. 129 (written in Russian, which I cannot read). : PREFACE references to works (especially re\'iews) which seemed to add nothing to the subject. I hope that the bibUography often includes all that contributes to the elucidation of the text ; but I am unhappily certain that there must be some, and may be many, regrettable omissions. The bibliographies are often followed by intro- ductory notes, which try very briefly to illuminate the texts against their literary and historical back- ground, to elucidate their general meaning, to com- ment on divers matters of interest and importance such as authorship, style and date, and to give wherever possible—often, I fear, where it was not possible—the context of the fragment itself. Such notes are unusual in this series of volumes ; but they may be justified by the fragmentary nature of the texts, which are often difficult to understand with- out some preliminary exposition and explanation often enough both text and translation depended on matters which are discussed in the introductory note. In a few instances the notes do nothing more than justify readings in the text or points in the transla- tion : that this was necessary, will be admitted freely by those who have studied the latest fragments of Euphorion, or followed the controversy which rages around the Niohe of Aeschylus. These introductions were A^-ritten or re\ised after perusal of the works to which the bibliographies refer ; I am therefore heavily indebted to those works, however much I modify them or go beyond them. As for the texts : again, I could not conform to the custom of this series, because I could rarely find a " received " text which I might adopt and reprint ; I must therefore construct my own. My practice vii PREFACE has been to start with the editio princeps as a basis, and to embellish it with such modifications as were dictated by later research and by my own study." I am not a papyrologist ; consequently it signifies little that I have read many of my texts in the original papyri, the great majority of them in photographic reproductions—most published, others bought and borrowed. In my study of some of these texts, especially nos. 1, 30 and 121, I had the incomparable benefit of Mr. Edgar Lobel's assistance ; those familiar with his standards will not need the reminder that his assistance in my study by no means implies his approval of my result. A word about supplements. I began eager to fill every gap with flawless fragments of my own com- position ; I ended with the desire—too late—to remove all that is not either legible in the papyrus or replaceable beyond reasonable doubt. At the eleventh hour, indeed, I expelled handfuls of private poetry : yet far too much remains, hard though I tried to print nothing which is inconsistent with spaces and traces in the papyrus, and to be guided, for the sense of my supplements, by certain or probable indications provided by the legible text. Of my translations I cannot think with any satis- faction. The insuperable difficulties of rendering Greek poetry into English are in no way mitigated ° In publishing the result, I have usually printed what I considered to be the best text hitherto produced ; footnotes then refer only to divergences from that standard. Such basic texts are denoted by asterisks in the bibliographies. Where no asterisk appears, it must be understood that for special reasons I have been unable to adopt any single text as basic ; in such cases, the authors of all supplements, etc., are named in the footnotes. viii PREFACE when the Greek is a disjointed fragment, often obscure and controversial, sometimes highly un- poetlcal. The only purpose which my versions can serve is to make it clear how I have understood the Greek—if I have made it clear, and if I did under- stand it. Had my predecessors (most of them) had even this ideal, my task would have been much easier. Many of these fragments have not been translated before. Since October 1939 I have been altogether unable to give either the time or the attention necessary to a proper reading of the proofs.'' But Mr. Roberts —equally distracted by new duties—has exercised unceasing vigilance. And late, but not too late. Professor J. D. Beazley performed a miracle of deep and painless surgery on every page : to him above all my readers owe whatever state of convalescence they may find in this volume ; they will never know how ill it was before. D. L. P. October 1940 " In particular, I have been unable to take account of works which were published, or became accessible to me, while this book was being printed, e.g. Mette, Supplementum Aeschyleum, Berlin, 1939 (p. 31 =no. -20, p. 22=no. 35, p. 47= no. 1, p. 71= no. 2); Edmonds, Mnemos. 1939, 1 and Schmid, Philol. 93, 413 (=no. 40); Szantyr, Philol. 93, 287 (=no. 17); Schmidt, Phil. Woch. 59, 1939, 833; Collart, Rev. Et. Gr. 52, 1939, 222. Murray, in the intro- duction to his Aeschylus (Oxford, 1940) gives" a clue to part of the contents of the forthcoming volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The whole of the first edition was destroyed by enemy action, and the translator has revised this reprint. November 1941 ix CONTENTS OF VOLUME I PAGB PREFACE V AIDS TO THE READER . xix TRAGEDY, 5th AND 4th CENTURIES b.c. 1. Aeschylus, Niobe ..... 2 2. Aeschylus, Dictyulci .... 8 3. Sophocles, Gathering of the Achaeans . 12 4. Sophocles, Eurypylus . .16 5. Sophocles, Scyrians .... 20 6. Sophocles, Inachus ..... 22 7. Sophocles, The Searchers ... 26 8. Euripides, Alcmeon through Corinth . 54 9.